October 30, 2003
Happy Birthday, Dad
What do I do in a typical day?
Sometimes, like yesterday, I spend an hour going over a "Time Management Exercise" with David. Most days I spend 25% of my day "doing" email. Argh. Besides looking at the subject heading and the "from" setting and deleting junk/spam emails, if I wanted to I could do nothing but email all day long. My inbox does not stay empty.
Today I listened to 13 new albums that have come in. Some I rated, since they were "indie" and may or may not get written up in our "Pick of the Litter" section. I emailed someone at Stickers & More about possibly getting some of those Derek Hess posters printed up. I found out that the airline miles I have with an airline don't ever expire, which saved me some worry, since I had feared I would have to "use them up" by a certain date. That took 5-7 minutes. I sent a few advertising contracts out. I packaged up several "bricks" of 10 cds that we're sending free to people that have subscribed from the mass email I sent out this week (if you want to be on our email list, just email me: Doug@HMmag.com and I'll add you). I went through a giant pile of "to do" stuff, like updating contacts, conversing with people we have a marketing trade with about getting balancing our account. I ordered 72 more of those "Worship At Full Volume" shirts. I made files for "past promotions," "receipts + printer quotes," "promo pieces" and "master copies of articles/HM press." I booked a hotel for a biz trip to Dallas. I sent out several (probably 12-20 thru the course of the day... I have "form letter" templates I saved in Outlook that I can send consistent and nice looking info with rates and deadlines on it) ad appeal email letters. I sent circulation and demographic info to two dvd/home video publicity firms about DVD reviews. I decided on merch quantities to let a former intern sell at concerts out of state. I whittled through my "personal" and "prep 4 next issue" and "ad sales" files to get rid of un-needed / outdated stuff. I sent cover images of a "mock" cover of the P.O.D. issue to our ad agency, so that they can use that one, and update the Sep/Oct MxPx issue. I followed up on a "Gear Review" issue with the "Butt Kicker" amplifier that we're "test driving/reviewing" for an upcoming issue. And that's just what I can remember off the top of my head. But ya know what? I feel like I haven't accomplished enough!! What's wrong with me?
I'm listening to a crazy blasphemous artist called H.I.M. on Universal Records. Cool sounding stuff. Reminds me of the best of Mad At The World's early heavy gothic stuff. "I'll take your sweet six six six" is repeated in the lead off track chorus. Interesting stuff.
Oh, and P.O.D.'s new album is the "LEAK" stream on www.MTV.com right now. You can Real Audio stream the entire album. It sounds good. You can sure pick out the track that Phil Keaggy played on.
